


Work In Progress

by metaphoricallylivin



Series: Trans Recruits Series [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 15:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10027928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphoricallylivin/pseuds/metaphoricallylivin
Summary: Curtis Holt is a work in progress, his body, his existence has been from Day 1.





	

Curtis was four years old when he started stealing his older brother's clothes. Michael was 16 and Curtis drowned in his clothes, everyone thought it was adorable. After a couple months it stopped being cute when Curtis would run around the house in his older brother’s clothes. By the time Curtis was five his parents stopped even smiling and Curtis was told to stop it. When he started stealing Michael’s dirty underwear his mother said that if Curtis didn't stop she'd take him out of t-ball.

As Curtis got older he realized it wasn't cute to be a tomboy anymore. When he was 11 he decided that he had to be like other girls, he stopped hanging out with boys and he paid more attention to how he dressed, switching his masculine attire to a subtly feminine one. In his last year of high school he joined the track team.

Track was one of Curtis’s favorite thing. He could run for hours. Running was as close to flying as you could get on Earth.  
The moments between when his feet touched the ground the rest of the world didn't matter. Curtis was free to be him while running. People watched Curtis run and they just focused on his speed or precision. Somehow an impact sports bra helped conceal all the parts of Curtis he hated.

Curtis realized that half of his problem wasn't in his own body, but in what others saw when they looked at it. They didn't see a boy, but rather a girl. Sure, he wasn't happy with his body and he’d trade it away if he could, but he'd much rather change the way people saw him. He didn't see it as a possibility… ever. So Curtis put up a work in progress sign on his whole existence.

 

* * *

 

 

When Curtis made the Olympic team his whole life became training. In college he'd never really relaxed and Curtis didn't anymore. Relaxing was a thing of the past, for people who wanted to win he needed to give it everything.

That also happened to maybe be a bit of a terrible idea. His trainer started to notice and ordered him to relax. He said to rent a movie and buy some ice cream and take the edge off. Curtis nodded and set about doing that. He rented the movie “Boys Don't Cry” because he remembered his brother saying it was good, that it was about a “tomboy” like Curtis.

Curtis sat down at his computer and put the disk in, listening to the whirr of the disk. He leaned back and plunged his spoon into his cookie dough ice cream, waiting for the movie to start.

Curtis doesn't remember much of the movie, he remembers seeing himself in it. He knew what it was like to feel alien in his own life, to want people to see him different. He knew he would do what Brandon did in a second, if he had the choice he would become a man. If it meant leaving his whole life behind he would do it for a second of being who he is.

He watched the movie again that night. He breathed in every part of the movie and whenever it got to the murder he cried. Curtis squeezed his fists shut and didn't move. The next morning he returned the movie and started the slow process of researching anything on women who were men. He knew what he was.

 

* * *

 

 

Curtis Holt won a bronze medal in the heptathlon in 2004. He stood on the podium and there was a crescendo of applause around him. Somehow despite becoming someone important, someone talented Curtis didn't feel fulfilled. He felt empty receiving a medal for an event he didn't belong in. He smiled, he knew everyone he loved was watching, but it felt hollow and fake.

3 weeks later Curtis started binding and he changed the way he presented himself to others. Binding was pain, but in a certain way it made him feel better. It made his body semi-permanently comply, but it also broke one of his ribs. He was told he had to stop binding when his ribs.

Michael said that there was a subtlety to being a man that he couldn't yet get. That it was in the way he walked not just the way he looked. Curtis learned and perfected everything Michael taught him. He said that having a little brother was the best.

Soon Curtis began attending therapy, working towards hormone therapy and surgeries. He hoped maybe he'd be able to compete in the next Olympics, as a man. It didn't work a year later, after top surgery, he injured himself and he met a cute physical therapist.

Curtis never went back to sports. He didn't know if he could ever be on the same level or even if he wanted to. So he did the next best thing, he got a job, he dated Paul and he worked towards having enough money for bottom surgery. In 2008 he went under for surgery. Waking up was weird because he had a boyfriend there to laugh at his stupid ass on amnesia. He had someone to take care of him and tell him that he was hot even when he didn't move because walking kinda hurt.

Curtis took down the work in progress sign down on his 27 birthday. He was happy, he was successful and for the first time in his life he looked at himself and saw someone he was meant to be. When he got married to Paul, got married as a man, he felt everything he wanted in life. He had an olympic medal, the man of his dreams, and a body that he was happy with.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate Boys Don't Cry as a movie, but I have to sadly acknowledge the significance of it.
> 
> Please give me feedback!


End file.
